


The deer woman

by Bitterblue



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 09:37:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1853266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitterblue/pseuds/Bitterblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It began as little more than a rumour, the sort of thing that ignorant people might whisper to placate themselves in incomprehensible situations. We must give it a sacrifice. The King and Queen were against the idea (barbaric), but the rumour spread and took root, branching and twisting its way towards daylight. (A fairy tale about a princess and a deer child.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The deer woman

The reports could not be sure what had been seen. In some versions it was a stag, honey coloured and honey scented, its antlers of a quality to make grown men weep with the frustration of the hunt. In others it was a doe, its coat gold and its eyes like topaz, with the faintest speckling of white across its back and flanks. In a very few, it was a woman, moving with more ease across the forest debris than any human ought to be able, and with a crown of antlers in her golden hair.

Parties were sent to retrieve whatever it was, but each returned home empty handed and starry eyed. Talk slowly shifted away from capture and study to removal and destruction.  _It is scaring our farmers_ , they said.  _It is ruining the hunt for normal creatures._ _It is fey, and we cannot allow Them to encroach upon our world_. But how did you bargain with a deer-woman who could only run, whose motives were inscrutable and actions beyond prediction?

It began as little more than a rumour, the sort of thing that ignorant people might whisper to placate themselves in incomprehensible situations.  _We must give it a sacrifice_. The King and Queen were against the idea ( _barbaric_ ), but the rumour spread and took root, branching and twisting its way towards daylight.

It was the eldest princess who heard it first, so it was the eldest princess who found herself standing before her parents and offering herself up.

"If it wants a person, well, I am a person. If it wants an important person, I am the Crown Princess." There were arguments. She remained resolute. "If it must be one of us, it should be me. My sisters will learn to live without me, and they would each be a good queen in their own right. I'm not afraid of it." That rumour, too, spread, a little wildfire licking at the branches of the first.  _The Crown Princess will save us. She will go to the monster. She will make us safe_.

The morning it was to happen dawned unnaturally cheerful and bright. The princess scowled out her window with its view of the only place she had ever known, this jewel of a city in her father's kingdom, and dressed. She would have preferred rain. Rain would have kept people indoors and away from her; with the sunlight there would be crowds wishing her off to some unknown end. She wasn't afraid, precisely; the feeling settled somewhere more around curiosity in her heart.

Her arguments had come down to the following, circling through her head in a stream as she tugged on her sturdiest boots: she was the Crown Princess, an important person to be sacrificed; none of them could guess what the creature wanted or if it even wanted a person at all, so sacrifice was certainly an overdramatic word being thrown around needlessly (her mother had  _sighed_ ); the princess herself was the best suited of her sisters to approach it because of her scientific mind, so surely she would be well placed to study the creature (her father had sighed, too); perhaps it just needed to speak with a person who wasn't trying to kill it, and as the Crown Princess she was certainly qualified to make diplomatic negotiations with the Fey, if that's what it was and why it was here; even if it did want a person, well, that would be an adventure (they'd all cried a little, then). Boots done, she tied back her hair, pulled on her coat, and left the room.

Of course her family cried and asked her again not to go, but the princess was the most stubborn in a long line of stubborn monarchs and their progeny. She kissed each sister on the cheek, whispering promises to return soon and safe they all knew she couldn't make honestly.

Walking through the city was as she had feared, and it was only three streets before she was overburdened with gifts from her people: small rolls and sweets, apples, matches, dried apricots, and then a bag to hold them all. She tried to protest, but the word  _sacrifice_  lingered on the air and around people's smiles, so in the end she accepted them with as much graciousness as she was able.

The forest loomed outside of the city gates, a hungry beast waiting to consume her. She set her shoulders, resolute, as the guards tried to bow and open the gates for her at the same time, shouting their thanks. The city watch had lost more men to the hunt of the creature than most other groups, their ranks thinned by the absence of their addled companions, and the men at the gates were palpably proud of her. It stung like nettles down the skin of her back as she stepped outside of the walls.

She had been in the forest before, on picnics and excursions with her family or with her tutors, but it had felt kindly then. It did not feel kindly now. Despite the sunlight and the cheerful birdsong, the forest seemed darker and menacing now. And then,  _there_ , a glint of gold. The princess, like all who saw it, gave chase. It was a gentle sort of chase, an amble between branches and over stones, the patient chase of a person who is not quite sure she wishes to catch whatever is leading her. She expected the creature to dart off, but it moved so she could always just barely see it in the dappled light between the trees.  _It wanted her to follow. It wanted her not to lose track._  The princess shuddered down a sliver of terror and walked.

Time seemed to move oddly, or perhaps it was simply the repetition of birch and oak in the sea of trees playing tricks on her mind, because it felt like nothing at all before she realized abruptly that it was beginning to be dark. Briefly she considered that it was a mistake, the tree trunks bringing an unseasonably early sunset, but a patch in the canopy gave her a glance of deep purple chasing orange light toward the west. She would need shelter. She would need a place to sleep. She hadn't even considered that this would last more than a day; either the thing wanted a sacrifice and she would be dead, or it didn't and she would be home. Part of her was unsurprised when she stepped into a clearing, its grass gently trampled down and a small pit dug for a fire, filled with broken branches and kindling. It might have been another person's, but the wood was untouched by flame and the princess couldn't bring herself to care. She gratefully dug the matches out of her bag of gifts, lit the fire, and curled up by the flames to eat.

It was fully dark not long after, and she was glad of the fire and the food she had been given. A rustle in the trees to her west made her sit up straighter, hand reaching for the hunting knife she wore at her belt (her only concession to her parents' demands she take a weapon). Pale gold gleamed in the murk, borrowing light from the flames. She relaxed a little. The creature had not yet shown any inclination to lead her off cliffs or attack; its track had been, on the contrary, the easiest path through the forest, avoiding brambles and rocks and only crossing streams at their narrowest points.

"I can see you there," she said. "To the western edge. I don't wish to hurt you. I've been sent to you by my people."

There was a hesitant pause. The princess felt it swell within her, a sense of wonder and fear and longing so great she thought she would burst with the feeling. And then, careful, eyes cast down, a person stepped into the clearing. She was pale and naked, her hair the same gold as the flank the princess had followed during the day, and unearthly beautiful. Atop her head grew antlers, resting on blonde curls, and when she looked up and met the princess's eyes, the creature's were as gold as the rest of her. She was clearly a woman, and the princess wondered faintly that she had ever thought of her as  _it_.

The princess stood, taking a step towards her, and the deer woman flinched back but did not move her feet. "Do you want to sit? I have food I can share. I promise, I'm not here to hurt you. I just wanted to…" she trailed off, shrugging. She couldn't quite remember what she had wanted, except to see her. "I have a blanket if you're cold." The deer woman looked at her for such a long moment the princess was quite sure she would bolt, but then a small smile began to lick at the corners of her mouth until a giggle erupted in the clearing. She stepped closer to the fire, closer to the princess.

"You are the only one who hasn't wanted to  _own_  me." Her accent was strange, as if human words didn't fit properly in her mouth.

"No, no, I wouldn't." Some memory of the weeks leading up to now filtered through the haze of the deer woman in her mind. "You've been frightening our hunters, and someone had to come speak to you. So I am. I volunteered. I'm Cosima." She reached into the bag of gifts and retrieved the blanket, offering it to the woman, who draped it around her shoulders like a cape and beamed.

"You are the only one who hasn't wanted to own me," she repeated, only this time it sounded like an affirmation, like a promise, like the final words in a fairy tale. "Did you want to come with me? I would leave and bring you if you wanted."

"I don't remember what I wanted when I left," Cosima answered honestly, "but that sounds...yes. I would like that, I think. You're Fey, aren't you?"

The deer woman took the roll she offered, tearing off a piece delicately and swallowing it nearly without chewing. "Yes. And you've given  _me_  clothes and food." Her smile was warm, and soft. "I'm not a very good Fey for taking humans. I'm doing it all backwards." Cosima grinned and laughed. "My name is Delphine. We will go in the morning."

"Delphine." The name made her heart warm. They settled back down next to the fire, Delphine sitting with the blanket pulled around her like an elegant dress instead of the checked woolen thing it was, and spoke all night of the stars and her life before and where they would go. And at dawn, when Delphine became the doe again, Cosima laid her hand upon her flank and walked with her into the woods.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by prolethean's theme on tumblr and a post circulating about Delphine as a deer.


End file.
